today's afr street talk page 42, page-12

Hotfire,
Personally, I don’t believe MTE will be sold for such miserly price for the following reasons:
1. MLM needs as much cash as possible to develop their pet Norinco scandium project – which by the way I believe has enormous potential as there is nothing else in the world that comes anywhere close to what they have got. It seems, only few investors understand and appreciate this. Yes, it will take few years to bring it into production but for those who are patient the rewards will be huge.
2. Recent (15%) placement to DADI Engineering Development Group Co Ltd, ensures that MLM and DADI can block any opportunistic, low-ball T/O. This arrangement should also strengthen MTE position in regard to joint venture partnership proposals.
3. T/O at $1.2/share would represent market capitalization of less then $0.1/tonne of inferred and indicated resources (i.e. by the end of 2011). This would be the lowest coal asset transaction for large resource base (with high quality thermal coal) exploration/development company not only in Australia but in the world. This does not take into account the potential for +15M tonnes/annum port allocation.
4. I would expect that China Coal Import & Export Company who owns 51% of Columboola project may have something to say about the T/O and certainly would be supported by DADI (unless MTE sells only the Bundi project). In saying this, the chance of takeover increases if the offer is made by another or any of the above Chinese companies. I would not be surprised if CCIEC is interested, considering that Bundi drilling results indicate this deposit to be so much more attractive (then Columboola) for longwall mining.
IMO, MTE will finalise joint venture partner ship agreement in the next few weeks and therefore secure funding for further stages of mine development. Please note that I’m not excluding the possibility of T/O but if it does arrive (especially if it is from XStrata ) it will have to be attractive.